College Professor Claims Being Pro-Life on Abortion is a Form of “Assault” Along With Rape

National   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Jun 30, 2016   |   11:29AM   |   Washington, DC

It was only a matter of time until far-left college communities started openly labeling the pro-life position as hostile. Some faculty and students at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia already are doing it.

The Washington Times reports an “educational presentation” on the college website lists pro-life advocacy as a form of “assault,” along with slashing someone’s car tires and “almost being raped.”

The presentation defines assault as “verbal or nonverbal derogations of an individual’s unique qualities such as family name or disability. These assaults are meant to hurt the intended victim through name-calling, avoidant behavior or purposeful discriminatory actions.”

A slide titled “Examples of Assaults” listed a series of “microaggressions” that students reported, including: “An anti-abortion person attacked my pro-choice beliefs.”

Campus Reform, which first reported the story, said Maureen Walls-McKay, director of counseling and psychological services at Longwood, created the slideshow using polling data from students on campus. Walls-McKay reportedly has been studying “microaggressions” since 2007.

Click here to sign up for pro-life news alerts from LifeNews.com

After publishing the story, Campus Reform received this response from Longwood Director of Communications and Media Relations Matthew McWilliams: “It is inaccurate to insinuate [that] these opinions are presented as those of either Longwood or its faculty. The presentation includes responses individual students provided to open-ended questions as part of a small, independent research project nearly a decade ago. Longwood values a diversity of opinions and works to ensure civil discussion among our students, faculty, and staff.”

Rick Moran, writing for the American Thinker, had this to say about the presentation:

If there’s one constant from school to school that defines microaggressions, it’s that there is no constant, there is no established definition of the term. A mocroaggression is pretty much whatever some kooky administrator dreams up on the spur of the moment.

Case in point: Did you know it was a microaggression to be pro-life?

… Apparently, there’s no such thing as “invalidating” a conservative worldview. By their lights, it invalidates itself just because it exists.

Pro-lifers are facing an increasingly hostile environment on college campuses. Recently, pro-life students at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania said they believe the school is targeting them with a new “bias response team” after they put up posters to raise awareness about the high number of abortions in the black community.

In May, Lia Mills, a young pro-life advocate and college student, said she was kicked out of her college class’s Facebook page after she expressed pro-life views in class that made other students feel “uncomfortable.”

“After I was eliminated from the Facebook group, I was then asked to apologize to the classroom, and, upon issuing an apology for any feelings of offense or judgment that might have been taken away from my comments, my apology was criticized, dissected, and subsequently deemed insensitive and insincere,” Mills said.

Numerous pro-life college clubs also have reported being censored and their displays vandalized.

Despite the continuous attacks, pro-life students are refusing to be silenced. Students for Life of America reported more than 1,000 pro-life student clubs in June, and those clubs outnumber Planned Parenthood campus groups by four to one.

MaureenWalls-McKay